The present invention relates to a process and an apparatus for the preparation of photographic copies wherein an order envelope, the film master and the film prints must be correlated throughout processing and brought together when processing is complete.
In the processing of amateur orders in a photofinishing laboratory one of the problems encountered is to insure, by means of suitable measures, that the films delivered in an order envelope (in the form of rolls, discs or strips) are reunited after copying, together with the prints produced in the laboratory, in the order envelope and returned in this envelope to the customer. The measures undertaken for this purpose generally consist of providing the film to be copied with a control (or twin check) number on an adhesive label upon its removal from the envelope and applying the same number (by means of an adhesive label) to the order envelope. It is possible, by means of the twin check number, to reunite the film and the order envelope after a temporary separation for printing. To complete the order correctly, it is also necessary to establish the proper correlation between the film and the paper prints produced therefrom. For this purpose, the films are usually spliced together into a long strip for development and printing, and numbered in a continuous manner. Consequently, the paper images produced from them are also located in the same order on a strip of paper. It is then sufficient to visually compare the first negative of a film with the first paper image of the same order and to ascertain in this manner that the film and the paper images belong to the same order.
In a more sophisticated form of this method the film is scanned by a color video camera so that the negatives may be displayed in an enlarged form as positives on a color monitor, whereby the comparison with the color images is facilitated and made more secure.
Further adaptations are known wherein both the film negatives and the paper images are scanned and compared at the same scale with each other on the same monitor. This method also requires that the agreement of the negative and the positive be established by an operator. This activity requires high concentration and is therefore tiring over an extended period of time. In addition, it affects the integrity of the coordination.